Honouring Our Sisters in Spirit and Calling Out Residential School Denialism
Content Warning: This post contains discussion of MMIWG2S+, residential schools, colonial genocide, forced removal of Indigenous children, starvation, massacres, scalp bounties, abuse and death. It also includes historical images that some readers may find distressing. Please read with care.
On behalf of Wîcihitowin Indigenous Student Alliance we honour the MMIWG2S+ relatives, friends, community members and Sisters in Spirit who have been taken as a direct result of colonization and the ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples.
October 4th Marks a Day of Remembrance for MMIWG2S+
Like September 30th, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, October 4th is a day for remembering, honouring and calling out the systemic harm Indigenous Peoples continue to experience. October 4th specifically is Sisters in Spirit Day, keeping alive the discussion of the thousands of mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, children and 2-Spirit folk who have been murdered or gone missing, representing the violence that disproportionately impacts Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQ+ people.
They are not forgotten. They live on in the hearts of their loved ones and in their communities. And we will never stop fighting racism, discrimination, gender-based violence or cultural erasure.
Shockingly, denial of this discrimination, both historical and ongoing, continues, with institutions allowing people to spread hate and misinformation and endanger the safety of Indigenous Peoples. When the safety of Indigenous Peoples is impacted, the safety of everyone is impacted. What you think may only matter to one group of people is a symptom of the division and inhumanity that affects all people.
Residential School Denialism Still Exists - Calling Out the University of Calgary
The Wîcihitowin Indigenous Student Alliance would like to call out the University of Calgary for permitting an on-campus debate on September 29, 2026, questioning whether Canada's residential school system constituted genocide. It occurred intentionally one day before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: a day to honour residential school Survivors and their families, recognize the ongoing effects of the residential school system, and remember the children who never made it home.
Residential school denialism is anti-Indigenous hate speech. Canada should recognize and treat it as such. To allow residential school denialism to be given a public platform on a university campus on the eve of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation demonstrates how white supremacy and systemic racism continue to operate within universities and other public institutions.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the residential school system was part of a policy of cultural genocide. In 2022, the House of Commons unanimously resolved that what happened in Canada's Indian residential schools should be recognized as genocide. As such, we are deeply concerned that a question so intimately connected to the documented experiences of Survivors and the history of genocide in Canada was turned into a public debate on campus on the eve of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Denialism occurs in part because some people are afraid to admit to the wrongdoings of their ancestors, acknowledge that they are living on stolen land, and confront what that means today. This can also reflect white and settler fragility: acknowledging colonial violence can bring feelings of guilt and shame, as well as fear that the settler status quo, including the land, power, privilege and security that people have come to take for granted, is threatened. Some people respond to that discomfort by denying or minimizing what happened rather than facing the possibility of losing the privileges colonialism created. They are too afraid to face the truth, because the truth hurts. But fear, fragility and hate speech will not stop the truth.
The genocide of Indigenous Peoples has occurred across North America since colonization began. The history itself is extensively documented:
Settlers, hunters, militias and colonial forces attacked and massacred Indigenous communities as colonial settlement expanded across Indigenous lands. In 1873, American wolf hunters massacred Nakoda Elders, warriors, women and children in the Cypress Hills in what is now Saskatchewan. In 1864, approximately 675 U.S. volunteer soldiers attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho village at Sand Creek in Colorado, killing more than 230 people, more than half of whom were women and children.
Bounty hunters were paid by colonial governments for Indigenous people who were killed, scalped or captured, including men, women and children. In 1749, the colonial government of Nova Scotia offered a bounty for the scalps of Mi’kmaq men, women and children, and the bounty was later increased from 10 guineas to £50 per scalp. In 1755, the Massachusetts government issued a proclamation calling for the killing and capture of Penobscot people and specifically offered payment for the scalps of Indigenous men, women and children.
"This proclamation, issued in 1755 by Spencer Phips, then lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, declares the Penobscot Tribe "to be Enemies, Rebels and Traitors to his Majesty King George the Second" and calls for their extermination, offering rewards for scalps of Penobscot men, women, and children." Source Smallpox-infected blankets were deliberately given to Indigenous people in an attempt to spread disease. At Fort Pitt in 1763, two blankets and a handkerchief taken from a smallpox hospital were given to Lenape representatives. An invoice explicitly recorded that the items had been used to “Convey the Smallpox to the Indians,” while British military leaders Jeffery Amherst and Henry Bouquet separately discussed using smallpox-infected blankets against Indigenous Nations.
The buffalo were killed off, including as a means to weaken and starve First Peoples. In the United States, the U.S. Army supported the destruction of bison as a way of controlling Plains Nations and forcing Indigenous Peoples onto reservations. In what is now southern Alberta and Montana, commercial hunters destroyed the bison herds on which the Blackfoot Confederacy depended. Across the Prairies, the disappearance of the buffalo brought catastrophic hunger. Canadian government officials then exploited this starvation as a means of coercion: Indian Commissioner Edgar Dewdney withheld rations from starving First Nations until they moved onto government-selected reserves, resulting in malnutrition, disease and death. In what is now Saskatchewan, Parks Canada notes that “starvation rather than persuasion” led some Plains Cree leaders to sign Treaty 6 adhesions.
"A pile of buffalo bones stacked for shipment to Saskatoon", circa 1898. Source
The Indian Act and related colonial policies formed a system of control that systematically stripped First Nations people of autonomy, culture and economic independence. The pass system restricted First Nations people from leaving reserves without permission. Permit systems prevented reserve farmers from freely selling what they produced, while the federal “peasant farming” policy restricted access to modern agricultural equipment and forced farmers to use inefficient methods even when crops were being lost. Amendments to the Indian Act criminalized ceremonies and spiritual practices, including the Potlatch and certain dances. Other provisions stripped First Nations women and their descendants of status for marrying non-status men, imposed involuntary enfranchisement, and even prohibited First Nations from raising money to pursue land claims without government permission. These policies contributed to poverty, hunger, cultural disruption and other devastating ripple effects still experienced today.
Residential schools KIDNAPPED Indigenous children from their families and communities. In Canada, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended residential schools, where children were forcibly removed from their homes and subjected to malnutrition and starvation, neglect, inadequate health care, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and the deliberate suppression of their languages and cultures. Thousands died. This was not unique to Canada: in the United States, the federal government operated or supported 417 Indian boarding-school institutions as part of a policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children for cultural assimilation and territorial dispossession. The U.S. government has documented at least 973 child deaths in that system and acknowledges that the true number is likely much higher. Genocide did indeed continue.
These are documented facts, references can be found below. They are part of Canada's history and the broader history of colonization across North America, and they cannot be erased by turning documented colonial violence into a matter of opinion or ignoring it.
As a final note to the University of Calgary - you owe the Indigenous community an apology and a clear accounting of how the university will protect Indigenous students and Survivors going forward. You need to be held accountable for your actions.
The Wîcihitowin Indigenous Student Alliance will not allow anyone to disrespect our greatly loved residential school Survivors, their families, and the children who did not make it home.
We stand with our Sisters in Spirit, we stand with our ancestors and we stand with all First Nations, Métis and Inuit Survivors. Because we are survivors and we are not going anywhere.
We light our candles to remember them and we keep the fires burning for them always.
References
Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs Secretariat. (2008). Orientation guide: Atlantic First Nations.
Beauvais, E., & Williamson, M. (2026). The prevalence and correlates of residential school denialism in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 59(3), 535–566. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423925100899 Cambridge University Press
Canadian Museum of History. (n.d.). Negotiating Treaty 7.
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. (2017, May 2). First Nations in Canada.
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. (2025, October 4). Ministers Alty, Gull-Masty, Chartrand, and Valdez issue a statement of support on Sisters in Spirit Day and the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people.
House of Commons of Canada. (2022, October 27). Journals No. 119, 44th Parliament, 1st Session.
Indian Claims Commission. (2006). Cowessess First Nation: 1907 Surrender Phase II Inquiry. Government of Canada.
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. (n.d.). Residential school history.
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (2019). A legal analysis of genocide: Supplementary report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Privy Council Office.
National Park Service. (2021, January 26). What happened to the bison? U.S. Department of the Interior.
National Park Service. (2025, April 24). Sand Creek Massacre. U.S. Department of the Interior.
Palmer, S. (2026, October 1). UCalgary students decry residential school denialism debate. LiveWire Calgary.
Parks Canada. (2018, May 31). Cypress Hills Massacre, Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan. Government of Canada.
Parks Canada. (2020, September 1). The residential school system. Government of Canada.
Parks Canada. (2025, October 24). History: Fort Battleford National Historic Site. Government of Canada.
Parks Canada. (n.d.). Edgar Dewdney National Historic Person (1835–1916). Government of Canada.
Phips, S. (1755, November 3). A proclamation [Phips Bounty Proclamation]. Province of Massachusetts Bay. Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission.
Smithsonian National Postal Museum. (n.d.). The Battle of Bushy Run.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Canada’s residential schools: The history, Part 1, origins to 1939 (Vol. 1). McGill-Queen’s University Press.
U.S. Department of the Interior. (2024, July 30). Secretary Haaland announces major milestones for Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.
